The column is “Time for an Intervention.” To better jibe with Noonan’s infantile prose and purpose, the thing should have been titled, “Noonan To Mitt: ‘You Naughty Little Boy.'”

Its subject: Mitt Romney’s so-called mic malfunction. In a stream-of-consciousness ramble, Peggy registers her displeasure with Romney’s unvarnished assessment of a large portion of the Democratic Party’s constituency.

While liberty requires a leader small and insignificant—one who lets the individual live free—Peggy wants a “big and wise” presence in her life. And in everyone else’s.

Subconsciously, no doubt, Peggy presses her points by galvanizing the style of the black southern preacher—except that the preacher, contra the courtesan to politicians, does not mistake the Republican anointed one with a Higher Power.

Romney’s realism is not how “big leaders talk” to “a big nation,” whimpers Peggy, who suggests that we discuss a “big issue”—one that has long since been settled, if I am not mistaken.

As proof that the matter in Big Government V. Small Government has been decided, I offer exhibit No. 1: 16 trillion gigabucks worth of debt. …”